Shadowland (34 page)

 
   'Did he, now?' The magician shifted his position against the mound and looked indulgently toward Tom.

 
   'I assumed that you followed me because you wanted to talk. You disobeyed me, that is true. But any good magician knows when to break the rules. And in doing so you demonstrated courage and intelligence, I thought — you were curious, you wanted to see what the terrain was like.'

 
   
Terrain
meant more than the land they sat on. Tom nodded.

 
   'I think also you must have read some of my posters — relics of my public career. Isn't that right?'

 
   'I noticed them,' Tom admitted. He thought he trusted Coleman Collins less than anyone else on earth.

 
   'You will hear all about it — this is to be the summer of my unburdening.' Collins drew up his knees and looked soberly at Tom over their tops, where he had knit his hands together. Suddenly he reminded Tom of Laker Broome. 'As for now, I want to say something about Del. Then there is a story I want you — only you — to hear. Then it will finally be your bedtime.

 
   'My nephew has had an unsettled life. He was on the verge of flunking out of Andover when the Hillmans moved. Now, you may not think much of the Hillmans — you see, I am being very frank with you — but for all their faults, they want to protect Del. And he does need protection. Without a good anchor, without a Tom Flanagan, he will pound himself against the rocks. He needs all my help, all your help too. Watch out for him. But also watch him.'

 
   
'Watch
him?'

 
   'To make sure he does not go off the deep end. Del does not have your healthy relationship with the world.' He drew his knees in tighter. 'Del stole that owl from Ventnor School. Had you guessed?'

 
   'No,' Tom said.

 
   'I heard about the theft from the Hillmans. They know he took it, too. But they did not want him expelled from yet another school.'

 
   'Another boy took it. Some kids saw him do it.'

 
   'Del wanted another boy to take it. Del is a magician too: a better one than he knows, though nothing like the magician you could be. Del stole that owl, no matterwhose hands were around it. Watch out for Del. I know my nephew.'

 
   'That's plain crazy,' Tom said, though a tiny area of doubt had just opened up within him. 'And here's something else that's crazy — all that stuff about my being better than Del. Del is better than I'll ever be. Magic is all he really cares about.'

 
   'He is better at things you will learn very quickly. But you have within you powers you know nothing of, my bird.' He looked at Tom with a kind of fatherly omniscience. 'You are not convinced. Would you like proof, before your story? You would?' He turned his head. 'There is a fallen log over there — see it? I want you to pick it up.' When Tom began to stand, he said, 'Stay where you are. Pick it up with your mind. I will help you. Go on. Try it.'

 
   Tom saw the edge of the log just protruding into the clearing. It was one that Thorn had not thrown on the fire, perhaps three feet long, dry and gnarled. He thought of a pencil on his desk, jerking itself upward, at the end of one of Mr. Fitz-Hallan's classes.

 
   'Are you afraid to try?' Collins asked. 'Humor me. Inside yourself, say,
Log, go up.
And then imagine it lifting. Please try. Prove me wrong.'

 
   Tom wanted to say,
Iwon't,
but realized how childish it would sound. He closed his eyes and said to himself,
Log, go up.
He peeked: the log reassuringly sat on the grass.

 
   'I didn't know you were a coward,' said the magician.

 
   Tom kept his eyes open and thought about the end of the log rising. Still it did not move.
Log, go up,
he said to himself.
Log, go up!
The end of the log twitched, and he stared at Collins' amused face. 'A mouse?' said the magician.
Up!
Tom thought, suddenly full of rage, and knowing that it would not move.
UP!

 
   But the log obediently stood on end, as if someone had pulled a wire.
UP!
It rose and wavered in the air; then Tom felt a wave of helpless blackness invading his mind like nausea, and the log began to spin over and over, accelerating until it blurred.
No. Enough,
Tom said in his mind, and the log thumped back down on the grass. He looked at it in dumb shock. His eyes hurt; his stomach feltas though he had eaten spiders. He wanted to run — he feared that he would be sick. He heard handclaps, and saw that Collins was applauding. 'You did that,' Collins said, and Tom's mouth tasted black.

 
   'I just gave you the tiniest nudge, remarkable boy. Now, listen to the story. One day in a forest, a sparrow joined another sparrow on a branch. They discussed sparrow matters for a time, brightly, inconsequentially, as sparrows do, and then the second sparrow said, 'Do you know why frogs jump and why they croak?' 'No. And I don't care,' said the first sparrow. 'After you know, you'll care,' his companion promised. And this is what he told him. But I shall tell it my way, not the sparrow's.'

 
   Tom saw the log whirling wildly, sickly, in midair.

 
10

 
'The Dead Princess'

 
A long time ago, when we all lived in the forest and none of us lived anywhere else, a group of sparrows was flying across the deepest and darkest part of the wood, aimlessly flying far from their normal haunts until they began their search for food.

 
   As sparrows do, they paid little attention to anything, and were content to wrangle and chatter with each other, zipping here and darting there, commenting. 'It's quiet,' said one sparrow, and another answered, 'Yes, but it was much quieter yesterday,' and another promptly disagreed — and soon they were all agreeing or disagreeing.

 
   Finally they circled through the air above the trees, listening to see how quiet things really were, in order to argue about it more accurately. The sparrows were now, as they had not properly realized before, almost over the palace of the king who ruled all that part of the forest. And there was no noise at all.

 
   Which was odd indeed. For if the forest was normally full of noises the sparrows had known all their lives, the palace was a virtual beehive — horses trampling in their stables, the dogs woofing in the courtyards, the servantsgossiping in the open spaces. Not to mention the pots rattling in the kitchen, the banging from the palace workshops, the
bing bing bing
of the blacksmith . . . Instead of all these sounds the sparrows should have heard, only silence met their ears.

 
   Now, sparrows are as curious as cats, so naturally they all flew down to have a look — they had forgotten all about their argument. Down they came, and down, and down, and still they heard no noise. 'Let's get away,' said one of the younger sparrows. 'Something terrible has happened here, and if we get too close, it may happen to us as well.'

 
   Of course no one paid any attention. Down they came, down, down, until they were within the walls of the palace. Some sat on the windowsills, some on the cobblestones, some on the rain gutters, some on the stable doors; and the only sounds they heard were those they made themselves.

 
   Then they saw why. Everything else in the palace was asleep. The horses slept in the stables, the servants slept leaning against walls, the dogs slept in the courtyards. Even the flies on the doorknobs slept.

 
   'A curse, a curse!' shouted the young sparrow. 'Let us go, let us go now, or we shall be just like them.'

 
   'Stop that, now,' said one of the oldest sparrows, for he had finally heard something. This was the faint sound of a human voice, and not just anybody's, but the king's.
Woe is me, woe is me —
that was what the king was saying to himself far up in one of the turrets, so despairingly that all of the sparrows immediately felt sad in sympathy.

 
   Then another, very brave sparrow heard another sound. Someone was pacing up and down in the long building beside them. He slipped around the door to see who besides the king was left awake. The sparrow saw a long dusty room with an enormous table right in its center. Beams of light filtered down from the ranks of high windows, each falling in turn upon the back of a woman in a long rich gown who was slowly moving away from him. When she reached the rear of the dining room, for that was what the brave sparrow had entered, she turned about all unseeing and came back toward him. She wrung her hands together; she worked and knotted herbrows. The sparrow's whole little heart went out to her, and he thought that if he could help this distraught beautiful lady in any way, he would do it on the spot. Of course, he knew that she was the queen — sparrows are intensely conscious of rank. When she saw him standing before the door, he cocked his head and looked at her with a glance so intelligent and kindly that she stopped in her tracks.

 
   'Oh, little sparrow,' the queen said, 'if you only understood me.' The sparrow cocked his head even farther. 'If you understood me, I would tell you of how our daughter, Princess Rose, sickened and died. And of how her death took all the life from the palace — from our kingdom too, little sparrow. I would tell you of how all the animals first fell asleep, so soundly that we could not awaken them, and then of how all the people but the king and I succumbed to the same illness and fell asleep where they stood. And most of all, little sparrow, I would tell you of how the death of my daughter is causing the death of the kingdom, for as you see us now, we are surely all dying, every one, in palace and in forest, king and commoner, wolf and bear, horse and dog. Ah, I almost think you understand me,' she said, and turned her back on the sparrow and continued her sad pacing. The sparrow nipped around the heavy oaken door and joined his fellows. He whistled to them all to be quiet, and then told them exactly what the queen had said. When he had finished, one of the older sparrows said, 'We must do something to help.'

 
   
'Us? Us? Help?'
the younger sparrows all began to twitter, hopping about in agitation. For it was one thing to witness interesting and entertainingly tragic events, another to try to do something about them.

 
   'Of course we must help,' said the oldest sparrow.

 
   
'Help? Us?'
the youngest sparrows twittered. 'What can we do?'

 
   'There is only one thing we can do,' said the oldest sparrow. 'We must go to the wizard.'

 
   Now, that really pitched them into consternation, and there was a lot of hopping about and quarreling. Even the youngest sparrows had heard of the wizard, but they hadcertainly never seen him. Besides that, the very mention of him frightened them. One thing everybody knew about the wizard was that while he was fair, he always made you pay for any favor he did you.

 
   'It is the only thing,' said the oldest sparrow.

 
   Where does he live? Is it far? Can we find him? Does he still live? Will we get lost? A thousand chirping questions.

 
   'I once saw where he lived,' said the oldest sparrow. 'And I believe that I can find it again. But it is a long way away, clear across the forest and on the other side.'